


there ain't no rest for the wicked

by ashkazora



Series: Ashka's Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Big Brother Instincts, F/M, Italics? Nah in this house we do coloured text, Lance (Voltron) Whump, Mind Control, Possession, can be read as platonic though, canonverse, implied Plance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23422141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkazora/pseuds/ashkazora
Summary: Even though the blue paladin couldn’t control his body, he felt his finger tighten on the blaster’s trigger.'NO!'Lance shouted in his mind as loud as he could.'Don’t you touch her!'His body paused, the presence controlling him tilting his head as if to motion him to continue. Lance felt like he was making a deal with the devil, sealing his fate with his own blood.-In which Voltron's ranks are compromised, again.
Relationships: Lance & Shiro (Voltron), Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt, pre-pidge/lance
Series: Ashka's Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674655
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	there ain't no rest for the wicked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RosieClark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieClark/gifts).



> Hewwo everyone and welcome back to my BTHB! Today on Total Drama Voltron, we have ourselves Lance with big brother instincts and mind control, with Pidge (and Shiro) as secondary characters. I am Ashka McClean, and I hope you've enjoyed my bad intro.
> 
> This was requested by @rosieclark on Tumblr! The link to my Tumblr and BTHB card is plugged down at the bottom. Hope you enjoy my fic!
> 
> -
> 
> tw: mild fighting scenes

Lance should have known something was wrong the moment Shiro asked to spar with him.

Here’s the thing: Lance was good at many things. Shooting, aerial acrobatics, hell he could even do a mean attempt at pole vaulting if given the chance. In a way he was a jack of all trades though he liked to think he at least mastered _something_. But sparring and close combat? 

_Hahaha_. No. 

It was poetic in a way how each paladin almost mimicked their respective element while fighting. Hunk, sturdy and strong, a mountain of strength; Keith, quick and burning like flames licking fuel; Shiro, fast and vicious and powerful as a tornado; Pidge, cunning and lithe as she weaved like ivy through the battlefield.

You’d think someone who represented water would strike hard and fast akin to the river rapid, or perhaps similar to the relentless gushing of a waterfall, content and aching and unrelenting. 

But no, Lance was neither of those things, though who could blame him? Jettisoned off to space when he was barely seventeen, the blue paladin was a flailing mess of too-long limbs and Labrador feet that he had yet to grow into. It wasn’t _his_ fault he was a bit of a late bloomer. 

Unfortunately, Lance’s awkward grasp over his own body meant that some things came harder to him than to the others, most notably close-combat fighting. His role as the go-to marksman on the team (and self-proclaimed Sharpshooter) meant that he never really got into close quarters with the enemy unless the situation became dire. It wasn’t his fault his close combat techniques weren’t as rigid or militaristic as Shiro and Keith’s, or unique and dangerous as Pidge and Hunk. It just so happened his talents lay in the art of nerfing someone with a laser blast or piloting Blue at dangerous speeds. 

A while ago, Keith started helping him with his fighting skills due to the fact that Lance ‘looked like a drunk person when fighting’ according to the red paladin. He improved _a bit_ , but Keith quickly grew tired of teaching him and spent more and more of his free time off with the Blade of Marmora, and so the blue paladin was left alone again without any proper guidance. 

Like always, no one ever had time for good old Lance. 

Recently, however, the blue paladin had been waking up early to do a bit of practice, which was why he was awake in the early hours of the morning in the training room. 

Well, _sort of._

In reality, Lance sat outside of the training room, drinking alien hot chocolate (that tasted more like burned marshmallow than earthen chocolate) and reading some Altean novel that was eerily similar to _Pride and Prejudice_ , except for rather _interesting_ murder mystery subplot. Reading gave him a chance to practise his Altean, a language he’d learned was basically the equivalent of Space Latin.

_(Back on Earth, Lance never really sought out reading as an active pastime. In space, however, the familiar scent of paper almost Pavlov’d him into stifling his homesickness)._

He was halfway through the novel, dressed in a tank top and his jeans with his bayard at his side when a familiar figure entered the hallway. Shiro, in all his six-foot-four glory, donned in dark purple eye bags and a thin sheen of sweat, lumbered his way closer and closer to Lance, looking vaguely out of it.

“Lance? What are you doing here?” The black paladin asked, confusion covering his features. 

Lance quickly shut his book and rubbed the back of his neck in a guilty sore of way. “I couldn’t sleep?” He said in a way that sounded more like a question than an answer. "What about you?"

Shiro paused, his eyes darting away from Lance as if he didn't wait to answer truthfully. "Couldn't sleep either."

Lance nodded awkwardly, not knowing how to respond. Talking casually wasn't something he did with his leader - Shiro only ever interacted in a loving, casual manner with either Keith or Pidge, but never Hunk or himself. Over time, Lance forced himself to accept that maybe his hero didn't really like him enough to try and get to know him better outside of what was required to form Voltron.

“Do you want to spar with me?” Shiro asked suddenly.

Lance felt elation rise within him. Shiro _never_ asked to personally spar with him, let alone talk with him outside of Voltron-related conversations, morning greetings, or reprimands. Yet he still looked up to the older paladin. Shiro was, no, _is_ his hero. The one who introduced him to the possibility of travelling to the stars. Hell, Lance remembered the first time he had ever heard about the great Takashi Shirogane, the youngest man to ever set foot on the outer edges of the solar system. His feats and achievements, even the non-Kerberos related ones, inspired Lance to join the Galaxy Garrison and eventually wind up a billion light-years away from Earth. 

“Sure!” The Cuban said almost too quickly. Jumping up, novel and half-drained cocoa forgotten, he triggered the training deck door’s opening and comically bowed. “After you.”

Shiro let out one of his rare grins, walking through the door with a small smile on his face. “Such a gentleman.” He quipped, and Lance grinned at his leader’s reaction. The black paladin had been so stressed as of late, always snapping at Lance’s antics where he’d usually hold his tongue. The stress of saving the universe was piling up on everyone, but Shiro was taking it _hard_. It was great to see him actually smile for one at Lance’s dumb jokes. 

Walking over towards the centre of the training room, Lance jumped up and down a few times to pump himself up.

“So what are we focusing on, bossman?” Lance grinned, too chipper for the late-night cycle. “ Staffs? Swords? _Oooh_ , let’s do swords. I wanna whoop Keith's ass to Woblay next training session."

Shiro snorted fondly but shook his head. "I was thinking we could do a little hand-to-hand, just to work on your technique." 

Wincing, Lance gave his leader two thumbs up. He could beat Shiro in a show of arms, and _maybe_ in a sword fight, but hand-to-hand combat? _Ha_ , he wished. There was a reason Shiro was the Champion of the Galra arenas - the dude was unstoppable even without a weapon (though to be fair, his glowing hand did sort of count as its own weapon).

Lance took a few steps back, putting some distance in between them. Shiro naturally dropped into a fighting stance, to which he tried to mimic fairly successfully, save the rather awkward hand placement. One fist protecting his head and the other protecting his stomach, the blue paladin felt like his stance was good enough.

"Remember," Shiro said, his authoritative tone reminding him of the Garrison instructors, "don't always play on defence. You have the longest arm span on the ship. Use it."

Lance nodded somewhat guiltily. In close quarters of combat, he really only ever played on the more defensive side, especially with Shiro. But who could blame him! He only ever got a good hit in if Shiro let him. Before he could reply, Shiro darted forwards and threw a powerful right hook, to which Lance hit away with his arm. 

He could tell Shiro was going easy on him - his punches were softer than what they were in battle, and the black paladin was only using his arms, not adding any kicks to the mix. The resulting spar between them was almost like a dance; Lance's fluid movements were used to evade and occasionally lash out, while Shiro's brute force pushed him back until Lance would change the direction of their movement.

Despite what Lance had claimed in the past, sparring was actually kind of fun, though if Shiro went at his full strength he would no doubt be dead at this point. The two paladins got into a rhythm, and Lance found himself enjoying their little spar. Once or twice he even managed to land a solid punch on his leader.

Shiro’s left hook came at him hard and fast, Lance barely having enough time to jump back and dodge it before the black paladin threw another punch aimed at his torso.

The quick, monotonous routine of blocking and avoiding was something Lance could do for much longer than any offensive actions. Years of dodging his older brothers’ dogpiles and Veronica’s love of trapping him in a headlock made Lance surprisingly _okay_ at manoeuvring in and out of Shiro’s jabs. If he squinted his eyes enough, he could almost imagine Shiro as Marco. After all, they both had the large, bulky build that made Lance’s lither build look like a stick. It was funny in a way how much Shiro reminded him of Marco. 

That thought made little bile crawl up Lance’s throat. 

Flashes of memories went through his mind and despite being in the heat of battle, the only thing Lance could see was his family’s smiling faces; Rachel’s dumb laughter when she pulled another prank on him, Veronica’s exasperated sighs when Lance would come home with another low mark. The way Marco would scream at the top of his lungs when he and Lance would go driving in their father’s car, and how Luis would try to hide his smile when the rest of his siblings did something hilariously wrong. 

God, it was hard to think about his family sometime. When Lance imagined going to space to fight a genocidal race of purple furries (not that he ever did, mind you), he never thought that homesickness would be the real killer. 

Just as the memories passed through his mind, a fist shot through the air. Lance, who was too caught up in his own memories, didn't notice Shiro throwing another punch directed at his head. He didn't notice how fast it was compared to other jabs nor the bright gleam in his leader's eye. The first caught him squarely on the side of his cheek, and Lance collapsed onto the ground with a pained ' _oof_.'

Before he could get up and retaliate, a pair of hands gripped his torso and flipped him face-first onto the training room's floor. Two legs pinned down his own as weight was placed upon his back. Lance tried to throw a fist, but Shiro's human hand gripped both of his wrists and yanked them above his head, pinning them to the floor as well.

Embarrassment burned through Lance as he realised how prone his body lay, and how easy it was to knock up down and disarm him. Messing up in front of Shiro was never fun, especially when Lance still carried hints of his extreme hero-worship from before they left Earth in a robot lion. 

Waiting for Shiro to scold him about his form or give him constructive criticism (that usually ended up comparing him to _Keith_ ), Lance was surprised as his leader said nothing. Maybe Shiro's silence was to teach him a lesson.

"Uh, dude? You mind letting me up?"

Unfortunately, Lance wasn't flexible enough to crane his head and look at the older man, but he could hear how ragged Shiro's breathing was.

_Was he stuck in a flashback?_

Shiro sometimes had ill-timed flashes and memories of his fateful year in the Galran arena. Whether it be some sort of post-traumatic stress or as a result of tampered memories, sometimes actions or events would trigger a more aggressive response from the usually-calm paladin. Lately, they'd been getting worse, especially in training. Shiro's eyes during those times grew glassy and unfocused, and he'd always act out as if he was still in the arena.

Lance _understood_ , never thinking bad about him even if those episodes were directed at him (and they usually were). But now?

Lance was terrified.

“ _Fuck_ , Shiro, I get it. The Galra won’t go easy on me, _yadda yadda yadda_. Can you please let me up?”

Shiro didn’t say anything, but his grip on Lance’s wrists tightened. He could feel the black paladin’s hot breath on the back of his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance saw Shiro’s body move downwards, effectively pinning him down on the cold metal with his weight. 

“Shiro..?” 

  
  
Lance’s voice broke slightly, his tone meek and unsure. The familiar rush of blood pumped through his veins, a response he’d only attributed to fights and Galra attacks but never while training. Never with Shiro.

“Ha ha, funny joke. Can I get up now? _Please_?"

Yet again, Shiro didn’t say a word; the only thing Lance could hear was Shiro’s laboured breaths and the shrill whirring of the Castle’s lighting system. 

The reality of the situation set in. Lance was trapped in a compromising positing with his tender, vulnerable neck exposed to someone capable of slicing through flesh like it was paper. Suddenly, the telltale buzzing of the black paladin’s prosthetic turning on cut through the heavy silence. A bolt of fear shot through his spine. 

“Shiro, what are you trying to-"

Lance _screamed_ as something descended into the back of his fleshy neck, red-hot and fiery. Blazing pain burned through his body, scalding the ends of every nerve and neuron. His muscles seized as he tried to do something, anything, to escape from the torture, but Shiro’s weight kept him pinned down of the floor, unable to do anything but embrace the pain. The acrid smell of burned flesh flooded through Lance’s nose, making him gag in nausea through his agonised shrieks. 

  
  
As soon as the pain came it left just as fast. A purple haze washed over his vision, whiting out in some places. Lance could _feel_ something wrong, something _slimy_ trickle down his back and up to his head. If he was sobbing or screaming Lance didn’t know, for the only thing he could hear were sick, menacing laughter. 

Replacing the indigos and white, black spots soon smouldered his eyesight  
  


-

When Lance opened his eyes, the world was painted in muted greys and blues. He felt… disconnected. Away from himself. His mind felt foggy, and he couldn’t quite remember why he was here, lying down on the cold castle floor. Did he sleepwalk here? Did Pidge play a prank on him? The green paladin’s pranks always seemed to embarrass him far more than he could ever do to her, though he didn’t mind playing into her traps (her smile was always worth the pain).

A dull ache throbbed at the back of his neck, suddenly knocking Lance out of his dazed stupor. 

  
  
Shiro. Sparring. Attacked. 

_Burnt flesh._

Lance shot up from his prone position - or, he would have shot up, but his body didn’t respond to him. He tried to move his fingers to no avail. His body wasn’t responding to _anything_. Lance attempted to shout, to wiggle his toes, _anything_ , but nothing happened. 

Lance tried to mentally reach out to Blue through their shared connection, yet the only thing that greeted him was a lonely silence. No static. No emotion. Nothing. 

_Blue? Can you hear me?_

The lion didn’t respond. 

_Blue? Azura?_ He called out, _are you there?!_

Lance grew more and more panicked as the silence stretched on in his mind. The last time he felt their connection completely quiet was— 

_Oh no._

The only time this had ever happened before was with the Baku on the mermaid planet where he was almost mind-swished by that evil plant. 

At his realisation, Lance felt something new, something foreign within him. It stemmed from the injury on his neck, radiating out like spilt oil in the sea. Whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t the blue lion. 

It was like playing a VR-game, except he could do nothing but watch.

** Interesting. **

A voice rung out in his mind, and Lance would have gasped if he could.

_Who are you?!_ He mentally shouted in a similar way to how he usually communicated with the blue lion.

The voice snarled. **Do you not recognise me, boy?**

If Lance could shiver, he would. The voice sounded like jagged nails on a chalkboard - ear-piercing and dangerous. It was frigid and cold but not the good kind he’d come to associate from the Blue Lion. No, the voice was like the blizzards covering your eyes in bitter defeat, an avalanche of frosted waters with no way to break the ice on top. 

_W-what are you doing to me?!_ Lance’s mental voice quivered, and he wished it wasn’t in fear.

Slowly, his body started moving. One foot after the other, the movements because less and less jerky with each passing step until _whatever_ was controlling him perfected his signature saunter. 

Shiro must have been long gone by now, not even Lance’s blood remained, yet in the corner was Lance’s Bayard, reflecting bright teal in the training room lights. His body swaggered over to his Bayard, the weapon activating immediately under his touch. Elongating through bright blue light, a sleek sniper rife was formed. Panic jolted through him.

_Wha- stop!_

The door to the room opened revealing the small body of Pidge. Her nose was stuck in her tablet as she walked in, too engrossed in whatever she was doing to notice him. His body moved robotically, training his rifle onto the centre of her forehead. Lance could do absolutely nothing to stop his arms from raising the rifle and aiming in at the training door, crosshairs placed in the centre

He realised too late what was happening.

_No, please, not Pidge!_

The voice laughed, it’s tone shrill and cruel. His Bayard was still trained on Pidge, yet the scope was lowered from her head to her chest, the crosshairs placed right above her heart.

“What can you do to stop me?” it whispered out loud in a voice not his own, and Lance felt a metaphorical chill run down his spine. The voice was right, he couldn’t do _anything_. For days he tried to get back control of his body yet time and time again he was thrown back into the prison walls of his own mind. 

_Why are you doing this?!_ Head spinning in confusion, the remnants of pain pricking at the back of Lance's neck. Nothing made sense. Why was this happening?

** Don’t you see, boy? We already have one paladin infiltrated in your ranks, why not have another? **

_Shiro!_ That must have been why Shiro attacked him! He was being controlled by whatever this voice was. That explained why he was so… different, after the black lion teleported him away after the battle with Zarkon. 

Yet the revelation did not bring Lance any joy to know. It only served to cause him more fear. If this _thing_ took over him and Shiro, what would it do with the rest of the team? And why did it want _him_? Lance tried to resist, to stop himself from hurting Pidge, someone he loved. The voice laughed at his attempt.

** The Druid forces are too strong for you, Blue Paladin. **

_Druids?!_ Oh god, that wasn’t good.

They were the ones that experimented on, _tortured_ Shiro. They gave him his false arm and years worth of post-traumatic stress. The embodiment of pure evil, the black paladin once whispered after a nightmare, _pure evil_.

Lance did not want to know what they wanted with him.

Even though he couldn’t control his body, Lance felt his finger tighten on the blaster’s trigger. 

_NO!_ Lance shouted in his mind as loud as he could. _Don’t you touch her!_

His body paused, the presence controlling him tilting his head as if to motion him to continue. Lance felt like he was making a deal with the devil, sealing his fate with his own blood. Deep down, he knew that no matter what, he’d do anything for Pidge. _Anything._

_I-I’ll do whatever you want_. He said. _Just, please, don’t hurt her_.

The voice didn’t say anything for a moment. Lance waited in silence, trapped inside his own mind as a spectator, begging silently for his hand to move off the trigger. Slowly, his finger left the trigger and moved to turn the safety on. 

**Oh paladin** , the voice crooned, **that was a mistake**.

Suddenly, a familiar fire lit up from the back of his neck. Unable to scream or cry, Lance was trapped in place and hellfire scorched up down body, leaving scorched trails of embers in its wake. It was worse than Shiro’s hand, so much worse. He could feel walls of sick flames surrounding him in his mind, trapping him in its tepid heat. 

Slowly, as the pain subsided, Lance’s presence grew fainter and fainter, until he could barely feel his conscious. Invisible hands grabbed at every exposed piece of flesh, pulling him away and trapping him within a deep, dark expanse of nothingness. 

Opening his eyes, purple light shone from within.

  
-

  
“Lance? What are you _doing?_ ”

“Sorry, Pidge, thought you were a training bot!"

Pidge laughed, and turned her back from the darkness. 

**Author's Note:**

> FUCKING HELL I HATE HTML/CSS. ao3 code can suck it. It took me an hour to figure out how the hell to add coloured text, and another hour to format. Was going to add a different font but lmao I can't stuffed. I hope it's obvious who the voice was.
> 
> But anyways, I hope you enjoyed! This idea was based off of an idea that me and a bunch of others from the Plance Discord Server discussed and well, if I get another suitable prompt this story will be continued. 
> 
> Massive shout out to Rosie who's an amazing writer and was one of the people who helped in the initial brainstorm of this idea. You'll be seeing more from her on my account soon enough ;)
> 
> Fun facts!  
> \- Lance's mental thoughts are the same colour as his armour (well, at least, in one screen cap). Big shoutout to Cyantific who actually gave me that hex value  
> \- Look closely at the last few lines, and see what's up with the colours ;)
> 
> -
> 
> Check me out on [my Tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ashkazora) And if you can, please leave a kudos/comment if you liked this! Your comments fuel me to write more.


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